*All Games*

The purpose of this game is to demonstrate how interruptions/distractions during sprint cycles and/or Program Increment can impact not only delivery of the product, but also the impacts on team focus and morale. About the game Time: ~1.25 Hours # of Participants: Can vary, but it is nice to have at least 3 teams of 4-6 people each What you will need: 4 to 6…

This is an exercise to help people understand why pair programming works; in particular why it produces better code. It has some usefulness for helping technical team members understand this, but I have found it even better for helping managers understand why pair collaboration works. Each team of two needs Rory’s Story Dice (or other forms of picture dice). I suppose picture-oriented cards shuffled and…

Learning Goals: Introduce Product Management skills, story splitting, and iterative product development in a simulation that we can all relate to–preparing a big holiday dinner. Holiday meals require lots of collaboration, planning, and problem solving. There can be many stakeholders, rigid timing, and high standards, so getting everything to the table at the right temperature can be quite a feat! Throw in a “magic oven”…

This is a retrospective technique I learned from Esther Derby and Jerry Weinberg. I’ve extended it a bit differently into the analysis and deciding what to do portions as they were using the technique as a debrief mechanism for an activity in the PSL course. This technique is particularly useful for multi-team/large groups. It will take about 120 minutes to run in full. One may…

Background This is an idea I presented at the Retrospective Facilitator’s Gathering in May 2019. Newspaper articles tell stories based on facts. So this retrospective idea is to use this metaphor to capture data, analyze it, and decide on some actions. In some ways, it is similar to the team co-creating an A3 report. Each person is a reporter bringing the news back and then…